A wagtail recovery
Short report
24th March, 2025 | Trip reports
A third of a newly established series of “short stories”. If you want to know more what these are, check the first one!
Bird ringing is not just about the ringing recoveries, especially when you try to study a species like the White Wagtail (Motacilla alba), which is notoriously hard to trap. Unless you focus on their night roost in reedbeds, then it is surprisingly easy. But no one really does it. So when I found out it is possible to trap them like this five or six years ago, I knew I would probably never know where “my” wagtails are heading to spend the winter simnply because there are very few wagtails ringed everywhere. But I did not care much, I was more interested in their moult, timing and dynamics of their migration and as a byproduct I was also able to identify a new way of sexing them in autumn, something not previously possible.
That being said, the ringing recoveries always make one happy, even when it is not focus of your work, because you learn something about the migration itself and it is always fascinating. Well, sort of… sometimes…
Since 2019, I have had only one such recovery. A bird I ringed on one fish pond I trapped 14 days later on another. Thrilling. Until now!
Today another ringing recovery appeared in my mailbox. Which meant only one thing – someone else recovered one of “my” wagtails! Well, sort of… This one wagtail unfortunately killed itself yesterday when it hit a window in a nearby village. Five kilometers away from the place I ringed it at the end of October, last autumn. So, I still do not know anything about where those wagtails spend the winter, but I find this recovery still interesting. I ring the wagtails in the smallest reedbed possible, any smaller and no one would call it a reed bed anymore, yet it seems to be an important place for wagtails during their autumn migration. I never trapped any individual twice there, so probably many wagtails pass through it every day and up until now I did not even know if all the birds were local or if they came from further away. I did not know anything. So now, I know something. I know that some of them are local birds (not surprising) even quite late during their migration (a bit surprising). How cool is that! Too bad, it also means one less wagtail.
My field site, the smallest reedbed possible. Widest point is like 15 meters wide, but mostly it is less than 2 m wide. Usually, one mist net is enough to cover the whole reedbed. Which makes this field very beautiful in a way.
The evenings are short, but sometimes quite beautiful.
This is the wagtail trapped last October and recovered yesterday. Rest in peace, little friend.
more photos in the gallery: CZEP24-253.
And this is the other wagtail which I recovered. This guy slept in a much bigger reedbed one night and two weeks later I trapped him again at the traditional night roost used by many wagtails. You can check more pictures in the gallery: CZEP20-395.
Red circle is the place I trap wagtails on their autumn migration, violet is the approx. location of the recovery from yesterday, roughly 5 km northwest but still in the general area. Yellow dotted line is the place of ringin of the other wagtail I mentioned in the text, which was recovered two weeks later on my "main" spot where I trap autumn wagtails.